The Journey Of A Fatherless Child Who Became 'Amma' To Millions

Jayalalithaa’s Life Was an Epic Tale of Cruel Fate and Outrageous Fortune. The Long Journey of a Fatherless Child Who Became Amma to Millions.

- Amarnath K. Menon and Shougat Dasgupta

When J. Jayalalithaa, chief minister of Tamil Nadu four times in 25 years, was convicted in 2014 of accumulating disproportionate wealth, posters brandished by her supporters asked, “Can a mortal punish God?” It was a reasonable question in a state in which Amma iconography could be found everywhere from billboards to household appliances. A reasonable question in a state in which politicians would prostrate themselves when her helicopter passed overhead, in which supporters set themselves on fire when she was sentenced to prison, in which thousands waited fretfully outside the hospital where she had lain for weeks and where she finally succumbed to a heart attack near midnight on December 5.

Gods must have their mythology. And Amma had hers. Through their tears, devotees spoke of her munificence, her beneficence, the sops and schemes derided as handouts and freebies but which made concrete differences in the lives of the poor. There is too the mythical quality of her life story—this golden child, clever and beautiful, turned into a film star by her mother, an actress herself, and groomed for political glory by M.G. Ramachandran (MGR), an idol picking out his celestial consort. In return for the worship of the crowds, Jayalalithaa gave herself up completely, forsook a private life becoming, like Elizabeth I, the ‘virgin queen’, an alabaster ideal who lived for ‘the people’ rather than any people in particular.